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It is not fair to single out Apple - all the software has gone downhill in the past couple of years - browsers, websites, apps, appliances, virtually everything

It is not fair to single out Apple - all the software has gone downhill in the past couple of years - browsers, websites, apps, appliances, virtually everything. My suspicion is that it's the proliferation of new ways of doing things - new languages, no-sql/key-value db's, new hosting platforms such as AWS, docker, big data stuff like hadoop, storm and spark, all kinds of embedded software (tv's, cars), etc - we've got a lot of new stuff lately, a lot of us don't understand what we're doing and we've introduced a ton of bugs.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago
This is my take as well. Complexity and the speed we get there has reached an all time high. You can't be fast moving and have high quality. Software is like any other trade: polish takes time and you need to stop to polish things. This thread has a lot of people praising Snow Leopard. Frankly, the difference between Leopard and SL aren't the high, but that's two years of development at Apple to polish things up. Apple had a rare slow moving period to clean things up. I suspect the mobile/cloud/whatever revolution is only recently slowing down and we'll be entering a polish period again soon. Then we'll be entering a complexity building period sometime after. Its a cycle that keeps repeating itself.
mamcx 11y ago
Agreed. Everything is more complex. Web apps is each iteration harder.. Native App development too (for example, .NET xaml is far harder than winforms and it than VB/Delphi).
- petra 11y ago
  And most of this is unnecessary complexity.why haven't anybody came up with better tools to attack that ?
  - ksml 11y ago
    Adding more tools generally adds more complexity...
  - CaptSpify 11y ago
    Because we don't need better tools. If things are getting worse, that shows we had the tools already. The problem IMO: We keep trying new tools where they aren't needed. #grumpy #getoffmylawn
    - petra 11y ago
      OK not new tools. But great tools. Most of the tools the web offers are pieces of shit - many developers will agree to that. And many complain that the web stack sucks. The simple example - you have to learn css, html, javascript, and some backend language - just to build say a business site, when you could do so, at a higher level, just by pointing and clicking and entering some code with something like microsoft lightswitch(which was discontinued).
  - mamcx 11y ago
    Because is harder to develop for developers. I'm dreaming to revive the kind of development made famous by FoxPro/dbase (or more exactly, mix Acces+Excel+Databases). Form building is another area that is far more complex that it need to be. The problem now is the multi-platform: Everyone (or most) want it, but not good toolkit exist to work on...
    - thirdsun 11y ago
      FileMaker comes to mind. It actually is a nice development platform for beginners, but has major shortcomings in other areas. Wouldn't recommend it these days.
      - mamcx 11y ago
        Is the same problem with Excel/Acces and similar. They have a good tool, but the language them use for glue things are not a match for the task the tool do. For example, Excel. VBA have impedance mismatch with the way excel visualy work. If, isntead, it have a more array-based language and bit more functional, then the way you use excel will be the way you code for it. That is in fact the power FoxPro have. You can make forms with tables, because, forms ARE tables. The syntax and basic operations work fine with the relational storage. You can SELECT INTO ARRAY and stuff like that, or just not use SQL.
- petra 11y ago
  And most of this is unnecessary complexity.why haven't anybody came up with better tools to attack that ?
HillaryBriss 11y ago
I agree. Though I cannot justify it with numbers I will add the theory that, with the advent of a weak US economy combined with outsourcing to less expensive, global programming labor pools, domestic software management has become kind of spoiled and lower in quality. Software managers are now, more than ever before, empowered to say "We need to add XYZ feature" and they quickly hear back from someone somewhere in the US or the whole wide world who says "No problem. I'll get on that right away!" And then the manager thinks they've done their job. Like that's all there is to software management. A lot of domestic software managers don't seem to have more sophistication than that, or more insight than that. Because, in this marketplace, they don't have to.
btbuildem 11y ago
Agreed - the barrier to entry has been lowered significantly, and legions of bro-kiddies who now call themselves developers have been pumping out garbage
VeejayRampay 11y ago
It's not a question of fair. It's just pointing out that for a company with huge amounts of cash on hand and the kind of hardware integration they benefit from (which normally makes software development MUCH easier), their products are simply not good anymore. Just because they're Apple doesn't mean they get a pass.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

This is my take as well. Complexity and the speed we get there has reached an all time high. You can't be fast moving and have high quality. Software is like any other trade: polish takes time and you need to stop to polish things. This thread has a lot of people praising Snow Leopard. Frankly, the difference between Leopard and SL aren't the high, but that's two years of development at Apple to polish things up. Apple had a rare slow moving period to clean things up. I suspect the mobile/cloud/whatever revolution is only recently slowing down and we'll be entering a polish period again soon. Then we'll be entering a complexity building period sometime after. Its a cycle that keeps repeating itself.

mamcx 11y ago

Agreed. Everything is more complex. Web apps is each iteration harder.. Native App development too (for example, .NET xaml is far harder than winforms and it than VB/Delphi).

petra 11y ago
And most of this is unnecessary complexity.why haven't anybody came up with better tools to attack that ?
- ksml 11y ago
  Adding more tools generally adds more complexity...
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  Because we don't need better tools. If things are getting worse, that shows we had the tools already. The problem IMO: We keep trying new tools where they aren't needed. #grumpy #getoffmylawn
  - petra 11y ago
    OK not new tools. But great tools. Most of the tools the web offers are pieces of shit - many developers will agree to that. And many complain that the web stack sucks. The simple example - you have to learn css, html, javascript, and some backend language - just to build say a business site, when you could do so, at a higher level, just by pointing and clicking and entering some code with something like microsoft lightswitch(which was discontinued).
- mamcx 11y ago
  Because is harder to develop for developers. I'm dreaming to revive the kind of development made famous by FoxPro/dbase (or more exactly, mix Acces+Excel+Databases). Form building is another area that is far more complex that it need to be. The problem now is the multi-platform: Everyone (or most) want it, but not good toolkit exist to work on...
  - thirdsun 11y ago
    FileMaker comes to mind. It actually is a nice development platform for beginners, but has major shortcomings in other areas. Wouldn't recommend it these days.
    - mamcx 11y ago
      Is the same problem with Excel/Acces and similar. They have a good tool, but the language them use for glue things are not a match for the task the tool do. For example, Excel. VBA have impedance mismatch with the way excel visualy work. If, isntead, it have a more array-based language and bit more functional, then the way you use excel will be the way you code for it. That is in fact the power FoxPro have. You can make forms with tables, because, forms ARE tables. The syntax and basic operations work fine with the relational storage. You can SELECT INTO ARRAY and stuff like that, or just not use SQL.
petra 11y ago
And most of this is unnecessary complexity.why haven't anybody came up with better tools to attack that ?

HillaryBriss 11y ago

I agree. Though I cannot justify it with numbers I will add the theory that, with the advent of a weak US economy combined with outsourcing to less expensive, global programming labor pools, domestic software management has become kind of spoiled and lower in quality. Software managers are now, more than ever before, empowered to say "We need to add XYZ feature" and they quickly hear back from someone somewhere in the US or the whole wide world who says "No problem. I'll get on that right away!" And then the manager thinks they've done their job. Like that's all there is to software management. A lot of domestic software managers don't seem to have more sophistication than that, or more insight than that. Because, in this marketplace, they don't have to.

btbuildem 11y ago

Agreed - the barrier to entry has been lowered significantly, and legions of bro-kiddies who now call themselves developers have been pumping out garbage

VeejayRampay 11y ago

It's not a question of fair. It's just pointing out that for a company with huge amounts of cash on hand and the kind of hardware integration they benefit from (which normally makes software development MUCH easier), their products are simply not good anymore. Just because they're Apple doesn't mean they get a pass.